Family of 'Pianist' Wins Fight Against Book Claiming Survivor Was Nazi Collaborator
Aug 02, 2016 11:54
Wladyslaw Szpilman's file suite against author and publisher of a 2010 biography that claimed Polish-Jewish pianist worked for Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The family of the late Polish-Jewish man whose story inspired the Academy Award-winning 2002 film “The Pianist” has won on appeal a defamation suit over claims that he was a Nazi collaborator.
According to Agence France Press, the widow and son of Wladyslaw Szpilman on Monday won their suit against the author and publisher of a 2010 biography of Polish-Jewish singer Wiera Gran. In it, the singer claims Szpilman had worked for the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Gran had also been accused of cooperating with the Nazis.
The Warsaw Appeals Court overturned a 2013 ruling that said the book was protected under author Agata Tuszynska’s right to free speech.
The ruling gives Tuszynska and her publishers 15 days to publicly apologize and to excise the passages from future editions of the work.
“This ruling will allow the ethical standards in Poland to improve and bring into question the poorly interpreted notion of freedom of speech,” said Andrzej Szpilman, the son.
JTA
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/1.734803?v=2F4E01B93A0028575ACD574565DE1198
LITIGATIONS OF TUSZYNSKA - COURT DOCUMENTS - LOOK PRESSE DEUTSCH.
Agata Tuszynska is now accused in Germany and in Poland.
Download book by Tuszynska in Germany pooled out of the market by publisher.
Next edition of the book in Germany will be partially blacked.
Hanseatic High Regional Court
Case No.: 7 W 39/13 3240177/13 LG Hamburg
Resolution
In the Matter
Andreas Szpilman
Hauptstr. 287, 79576 Weil am Rhein
- Applicants and complainants -
Represented by lawyers Brehm, Wendt, An der Alster Hamburg 16.20099, Gz: 1107/13W114/dg
against
Insel Verlag Anton Kippenberg GmbH & Co. KG
represented by the general partner Insel-Verlag GmbH, represented by the Managing Director, Dr. Jonathan Landgrebe,
Dr. Thomas Sparr and Unseld Berkewicz, Pappelallee 78-79, 10437 Berlin
- Defendant and Respondent -
Represented by RAUE Lawyers LLP
Potsdamer Platz 1, 10785 Berlin, T.:. 501-13 JH / evk
Decides
Hanseatic Higher Regional Court - 7, Civil Division – by the
presiding judge at the High Court Buske, the judge at the High Court Lemcke and the judge at the High Court Meyer
on 21th,May.2013:
I. On appeal by the applicant, the decision of the Regional Court of Hamburg, Civil Division 24, of 18 April 2013 - 324 0177/13 - is amended.
By way of injunction - because of the urgency without a hearing -
to avoid administrative fine, which is to be determined for each case of infringement by the court and in the event that this can not be paid, to avoid an order of detention or imprisonment up to six months ( money order in individual cases not exceeding 250.000, - EUR; administrative detention of no more than two years)
is the defendant
in addition to the already decided Prohibition
prohibited
to arouse the suspicion that the father of the applicant, Wladyslaw Szpilman have been involved in a violent action of the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto on 2 August 1942 and / or have in this context beaten a woman with a baton and / or pulled by the hair,
By reporting
"On August 2, 1942 .... ... own eyes. He survived the war. want him to know that I have seen him. "
and
"He ... ....he protected his hands. On pianist, he had his hands very careful. "
as happened on page 110/111 of the book "The singer of the ghetto - The Life of Wiera Gran" (AKA Vera Gran The accused) by the author Agata Tuszynska, 1 Edition 2013 (ISBN 978-3-458-17574-2)
Excluded from this prohibition are already printed and packed copies of the book "The singer of the ghetto - The Life of Wiera Gran" by the author Agata Tuszynska, 1 Edition 2013 (ISBN 978-3-458-17574-2)
The costs of the proceedings at first instance fall to the applicant and the defendant each half for a value of € 50.000, -. The costs of the appeal proceedings shall bear the defendant for a value of € 15.000, -.
Reasons:
The immediate appeal is permitted and is well founded.
The sought ban is justified from the point of reporting of undue suspicion (§ § 823, 1004 BGB).
With the passages referred to in the prohibition, the defendant raised the suspicion that the father of the applicant, Wladyslaw Szpilman have been involved in a violent action of the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto on 2 August 1942 and / or have in this context beaten a woman with a baton and / or pulled by a hair.
It is itself, as LG HH the district court pointed out, an extremely serious and debilitating accusation, which by the Court's opinion, under weighing of the conflicting interests, violates the post-mortem personality rights of the father of the applicant.
About such a serious suspicion should have been only reported when a minimal collection of evidence would be given to proof the veracity of the information and only thus would awards their "public value“. (see BGH NJW 2000, 1036, 1037, para.20).
The less security in the search about the fact that the allegation is true can be acquired, the more caution should be exercised in the publication. Lacks of the minimum set of evidence must therefore result in the dispenion of the publication (see Prinz / Peters, media law, Rn . 269f.).
Presently the publication lacks this minimum set of evidence for factual issues. As the defendant himself mentions in her book, acusations are based solely on the suspicion notes of the late singer Wiera Gran in 1980 and acknowledges made in 1996 by Gran Wiera towards the Foundation Survivors of the Shoah in California.
The author of the book found no confirmation in accessible archives that the statement of the Wiera Gran is true. Even in the relations of other witnesses, the author found nothing that corresponded to the report of Wiera Gran. (p. 112 of the book).
Given the seriousness of the accusations, under such evidential situation, defendant had to dispense the publication of accusations.
The costs are based on the Code of Civil Procedure § § 91,92,97.
Buske, Chief Judge of the High Court
Lemcke Judge
at the High Court
Judge Meyer
at the High Court
Excerpts:
Regional Court of Hamburg,
Resolution
In the Matter
Andreas Szpilman, 287 Main Street, 79576 Weil am Rhein
- Applicants -
· process authorized
Lawyers Brehm, Wendt, On the A1ster 16, 20099 Hamburg,
against
Insel Verlag Anton Kippenberg GmbH & Co. KG, represented by d circuit-island publishing GmbH, represented by the Managing Director Ulla Unseld-Berkewicz, Dr. Jonathan Landgrebe, Thomas Sparr, Poplar Avenue 78-79, 10437 Berlin
-Defendant -
for omission
on 18.04.2013 decided the regional court Hamburg - Civil Division 24 –
by the presiding judge at the district court Kaefer,
the Judge of the District Court Mittler,
and the judge of the district court, Dr. Link
By way of injunction
-because of the urgency without a hearing –
-to avoid administrative fine, which is to be determined for each case of infringement by the court and in the event that this can not be paid, to avoid an order of detention or imprisonment up to six months ( money order in individual cases not exceeding 250.000, - EUR; administrative detention of no more than two years)
is the defendant prohibited:
in relation to the applicant
to spread the impression that the father of the applicant, Wladyslaw Szpilman, knowingly or willfully have given informations to the Polish communist Secret Service of Ministry of the Interior (SB = Sluzba Bezpieczeństwa);
by reporting:
"What was his motive [Wladyslaw Szpilman] with this statement made to an officer of the secret service of the communist Interior Ministry? Did he know something he had not told in the trial at the late forties? He was threatened that he could no longer travel abroad, if He did not agree to cooperate with the secret services.What was the reason that he gave of his own free such information about his former colleague from Sztuka? "
as happened on page 230, and page 231 of the book "The singer of the ghetto - The Life of Wiera Gran" by the author Agata Tuszynska 1 On!. 2013 (ISBN 978-3-458-17574-2).
Excluded from this prohibition are already printed and distributed copies of the book "The singer of the ghetto - The Life of Wiera Gran" by the author Agata Tuszynska 1 On!. 2013 (ISBN 978-3-458-17574-2).
.....
The costs follows from § § 92, Section 1, Paragraph 3 269 ZPO. The dispute fixing based on Code of Civil Procedure § 3.
Käfer Mittler Link
Vera Gran The Accused by Agata Tuszynska Reviews:
New York Times - Sunday Book Review 3 May 2013
Under Suspicion
by James Lasdun
„Confused piece of work...“
...One of Gran’s accompanists was Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose memoir of survival in the ghetto was the basis for Roman Polanski’s film “The Pianist.”...
...Whether or not she was guilty, the recriminatory atmosphere of the immediate postwar period worked against her. There may also have been personal animosity involved in some of the accusations. But as time passed many of her detractors, including Szpilman, seemed to want to let the matter drop.
Gran, however, wasn’t so inclined to forget or forgive. In 1980 she self-published a memoir in which she attempted to turn the tables on Szpilman, making the sensational claim that he was a member of the Jewish police, and that she had seen him, in uniform, dragging women by their hair to one of the selections.
As Tuszynska acknowledges, there is zero evidence of this from any other source. Given the acute postwar interest in punishing collaborators (illustrated by Gran’s own story), this total absence of corroborating testimony makes it unlikely to be true. So does the fact that Gran said nothing about it at the time, waiting almost 40 years to drop (or invent) her bombshell. So do her many delusions, lapses of memory and outright lies, all documented by Tuszynska. Szpilman was far from Gran’s most ardent accuser, but his fame seems to have vested him with overwhelming symbolic power in her eyes...
...One would think Tuszynska might therefore be careful to quarantine the allegation in thick disclaimers. But on the contrary, without quite endorsing it, she plays it up to the maximum...
...You can gauge the quality of Tuszynska’s reasoning from this simultaneously muddled and devious conversion of uncertainty into “fact”: “Was he a member of the police, or a volunteer?...
...Well, scandal sells.
...neither Gran nor history is well served by this careless, confused piece of work.
‘Vera Gran - The Accused,’ by Agata Tuszynska - NYTimes.com 3.5.2013
James Lasdun’s most recent book is “Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked.”
http://cosmopolitanreview.com/vera-gran-the-accused/
...No new evidence is uncovered, nothing is resolved; the architects of this tragedy – the Germans – are largely absent from the story...
...And therein is the problem with the book. Must the victims still be set one against the other? Must we continue to humiliate them? The Nazis had already done that; no need to attract new voyeurs....
http://cosmopolitanreview.com/vera-gran-the-accused/
„What is amazing about this theory is that it is a perfect copy of the charge that Vera Gran must have cooperated with the Communists to be allowed to leave the country in 1950. Tuszynska knows that in totalitarian societies, it’s the accusation, not the proof, that matters. Yet, she brazenly piles on Szpilman.
In a retreat from judgment, Tuszynska announces, “We are all collaborators.” Equally to blame, equally blameless, a vacuous conclusion to what’s advertised as “A Meditation on the Nature of Collaboration.” Anyway, it’s too late to take the high road. We find ourselves sitting with “the viper-tongued Polish Jews” who chased Vera Gran from the cafes and theaters of Tel Aviv and Haifa in the 1950s and again in the ’60s.
Accusations, both those made on behalf of Gran and those leveled at her by her enemies, take on a life of their own, mowing down the innocent with the guilty. Besides destroying reputations, they play into the hands of nationalist political parties across East Europe who are rewriting history and claiming that Nazism and Communism were equally evil, and that the genocide committed by the one should not be acknowledged without recalling the crimes of the other.“
(Reviewer Theodore Rosengarten is a professor of Holocaust studies at the College of Charleston.)
Boston Globe by Richard Eder on March 09.2013:
...When the war ended Gran was accused of collaborating: not just enriching herself by performing for Polish Nazis but mingling with them...
...The author’s style can be tough on the reader. She writes in a choppy narrative fashion, with side-trips and rambles and occasional seeming incoherence. The intention is admirable, even heroic, though not quite successful...
The Christian Science Monitor by Carlo Wolff, february 26, 2013:
...Agata Truszynska’s archeological dig of Gran, is less history than obsession. It’s as much about Tuszynska as it is about Gran, and in the end, neither is compelling enough for such a labored work. But too often reading this book feels like a chore...
...this portrait numbs more than it illuminates...
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1st, 2013:
„With the constant changes in scene and the muddled nature of the accusations made, the book is challenging and can be difficult to follow. ...too limited in scope for general readers...“
Publishers weekly Reviewed on: 12/17/2012:
„Tuszynska’s prose … …finds no bright line of truth“
February 27th, 2013 LA Review of Books
Confronting the Accused: On Agata Tuszynska and Vera Gran:
„Tuszynska was born in Warsaw in 1957, the daughter of two journalists. Her father, a well-known sports broadcaster, only used the term “Jew” in a mocking voice.“
Library Journal Review FEBRUARY 1, 2013: |
„VERDICT Although Tuszynska claims she had unfettered access to Gran's personal papers and that she examined many other archival sources, there are no citations provided to specific sources. Furthermore, the book does not follow a standard linear narrative and often reads like a stream of consciousness, which not only makes for difficult reading but limits its use for scholars. Recommended only for specialists collecting comprehensively.“
Julia M. Klein Published May 07, 2013, The Jewish Daily Forward
...As a result, “Vera Gran: The Accused” is not a very satisfying book.
...by the time we meet Gran, she is suffering from dementia.
...Many readers, ...may prefer to opt out.
Wiera Gran (20 April 1916 – 19 November 2007) (from Wikipedia on 12.12.12) was a Polish singer and actress. Reputedly born as Weronika Grynberg, she was also known as Vera Gran and Mariol.
Wiera Gran had a low alto voice even in early 1934, when at the age of 17 when - using the pseudonym Sylvia Green - she made her first recording, the tango Grzech.[1] She sang in the Cafe Paradis in Warsaw in the early 1930s.[2] While most of her recordings are in the Polish language, she sang in Yiddish in the movie On a heym (Without a home) with Shimon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher.
She escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. In 1947, she was accused in Poland of collaboration with the Germans during World War II by Jonas Turkow and Adolf Berman. Władyslaw Szpilman said in the court to hear of her collaboration in "aryan" Warsaw during the war. Marek Edelman (Kommendant of the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw) said on 5.5.1945 (before the end of the war) that he knew of the collaboration of Wiera Gran with the Gestapo. He knew also that a death sentence was imposed against her by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa - AK), but Gran was not found, and therefore it did not come to an enforcement.[3] Similar information reported by Irena Sendlerowa[4] AK [5] Wiera Gran later emigrated to Israel where she had to face similar accusations.[6]
In 1950, she moved to France. She was associated with Maurice Chevalier's stage theater, Alhambra. She also worked with Charles Aznavour. The first song which made her popular was composed in 1937 by Adolf Kurc (later known as Eddy Courts) to Gran's lyrics. She traveled to Poland in 1965. Some of her best known songs include "List", "Wir tańca nas porwał", "Gdy odejdziesz", "Trzy listy", "Fernando", "Cicha jest noc", "Varsovie de mon enfance", "Ma Patrie" and "Mazowiecki wiatr".[citation needed]
Collaboration case
After the war, in 1945, Gran was accused by Jonas Turkow [7] of collaboration while in the Warsaw Ghetto and later, outside of the Ghetto on the "aryan" side of the wall - in the Hotel Polski. In 1947, the Citizen's Court of the Central Committee of Polish Jews (Sąd Obywatelski przy Centralnym Komitecie Żydów Polskich) heard the case and Gran was found not guilty in 1949 (the case was dropped by the Committee's lawyers for lack of incriminating evidence).[citation needed]
The Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny) in Warsaw holds documents from that period. In Israel, she was also accused of collaboration with German Gestapo by Marek Edelman Jonas Turkow, Adolf Berman and Pesach Burstein and boycotted. She attempted to clear her name in courts there but the trial was finally suspended in 1982 causing her to lose the case.[8][9] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum holds the <Folder which Consists of a Polish translation of an affidavit given in Tel Aviv in 1971 regarding Polish singer Wiera Gran. In the affidavit, the unidentified claimant accuses Ms. Gran of collaborating with the Gestapo responsible for the Warsaw ghetto. http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn519051
In her book Sztafeta Oszczerców[10] published in 1980 in Paris, Gran gives her own account of events and argues her innocence accusing Jonas Turkow of collaboration with Gestapo. Irena Sendlerowa says in 1983[4] as a member of the AK (National Army): "Wiera Gran - was a cabaret actress in the ghetto. She also appeared on the so-called "Aryan" side in "Cafe Mocca" in the Marszalkowska street, and worked with Leon Skosowski, Adam Zurawin, Koenig, Wlodarski, Mark Rozenberg and Franciszaka Manowna for the Gestapo. Adam Zurawin Skosowski and Leon were sentenced to death in 1943 by the Polish and Jewish underground movement. Skosowskis sentence was carried out in Warsaw by the members of underground organizations. Zurawin escaped. After the shooting of Skosowski, Wiera Gran hid in Babice (Boernerowo) under the name - Jezierska." This information and the underground army (AK) reports were not known to the courts in 1946-47, when deliberating over Wiera Gran's guilt.., It is proven that her husband, Kazimierz Jezierski at the time was employed by the Polish Ministry of State Security.Antoni Marianowicz, at this time 16-years old, considers the accusations to be profoundly idiotic, but Marianowicz says himself in his book, that he stayed most of the wartime outside of the ghetto in the "aryan" Warsaw. [11] Marianowicz claims Wiera Gran was a "singer and only a singer" and was known to him for her philanthropy.[citation needed] A similar statement is made by journalist Joanna Szczęsna in Gazeta Wyborcza [7] Szczęsna posits that the accusations against Gran were based on personal animosities between Gran and Jonas Turkow and Władyslaw Szpilman. Joanna Szczęsna in Gazeta Wyborcza [7] informs that Gran accuses Szpilman and Polanski of planning to kill Wiera Gran. It is possible that Władyslaw Szpilman saw Gran in person collaborating with the Gestapo "13" - a Jewish department of the Gestapo in the Warsaw Ghetto. Gran was very closely related to some policemen and members of the "13". She was described in the book "The Pianist" by Władyslaw Szpilman as Mrs K. in the chapter "A Fine Gesture by Mrs K". Szczęsna quotes, from documents preserved in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, statements made by witnesses such as Jerzy Jurandot, Krystyna Żywulska[who?] and Izabela Czajka-Stachowicz[who?], all of whom claimed that the accusations against Wiera Gran were based on hearsay.[cit
(Sources Wikipedia and o.)
Important link in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn519051
more informations about Agata Tuszynska: http://www.agatatuszynska.info
Vera Gran - Credible Witness ?
Numerous documents of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) counterintelligence agents proves assignment of the hero of the new book by Agata Tuszynska "Vera Gran the Accused" by Wydawnictwo Literackie Krakow and particularly Wiera Gran`s working for the occupiers in a so-called "Action Hotel Polski".
Under this devised plan, many Jews were lured from their hiding places in Warsaw and promised that by paying large amounts of money, they would be equipped with false South American passports, could travel to Vittel and later could emigrate to Palestine. But only a very few reached Palestine, (eg, Ruth Adler) Most were shipped from Vittel to the death camps and murdered. Amongst the victims of "Action Hotel Polski" was for example Itzhak Katzenelson, the famous Jewish poet.
Marek Edelman (Kommendant of the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw) said on 5.5.1945 (before the end of the war) that he knew of the collaboration of Wiera Gran with the Gestapo. He knew also that a death sentence was imposed against her by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), but Gran was not found, and therefore it did not come to an enforcement.
_ _ army counter-intelligence reports. "(...) Reports on Wiera Gran are seven.
All are of the first of January to the last September 1943 .(...)
"None of these documents were known during her trial the court and to the Social Committee ..." (S.378 - Tuszynska) -
Here are two:
1) _ 01/09/1943 _ "Jew, before the war, a cabaret dancer, now leads an office of the confidants of the Gestapo, who are occupied mainly hunting for Jews, â"œmopœmopping up in the first rowâÄù.
This message comes from two different sources, among others from the ghetto and the environment Staszauer-Fichna. "_
2) _ _ 6.4.43. . Warning (...) Gestapo agents in the cafe on the corner Koszykowa Auguststr and 6, at the meeting place of the members of the gang of Skosowski in addition to the people who come here already: Also: Fokszanski, Mirecki, Clondau, Green Wira. Also Jews from the circles around the cabaret and art are coming
This informations and the underground army (AK) reports were not known to the courts in 1946-47, when deliberating over Wiera Gran's guilt.., It is proven that her husband, Kazimierz Jezierski at the time was employed by the Polish Ministry of State Security. The atmosphere after the Kielce Krakow and anti-Jewish pogroms, favored the termination of the proceedings against Wiera Gran.
The court case in Poland was stopped because of "lack of evidence".
In 1980 Wiera Gran self-published a book "Baton of the Detractors," which was intended as a revenge and had been rejected because of the slander contained by publishers.
This book was never perceived as serious by historians.
Wladyslaw Szpilman was the only one , known to wider public in Poland and abroad, whose fate had formerly crossed paths with those of Wiera Gran.
For this reason, Wladyslaw Szpilman was honored with a "loss leader role," anonimous insinuations, without mentioning his name.
Thus eluding legal charges. Wladyslaw Szpilman eventually provided a statement to this book and asked for the appropriate investigation at the Warsaw Jewish Historical Institute to be launched (on 12.01.1981). This request was however unsuccessful, as the authorities were more concerned with the Solidarity movement and a state of emergency at that time.
Declaration by Irena Sendler.
Note: Irena Sendler: Righteous Among the Nations - has saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw ghetto. She was working for AK "Zegota" Home Army (Armia Krajowa) division to rescue the Jews.
Bio of Irena Sendler - Wikipedia
Letter by Irena Sendler for Download as PDF:
http://www.veragran.com/sendler1pdf.pdf
http://www.veragran.com/sendler2pdf.pdf
Irena Sendler wrote in April 1983 to the Jewish Historical Institute:
--------------------------------------------
Warsaw, April 1983
Prof. Dr. Horn Maurycy
Director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
Signed: 17.06.83 A.051/488/80
In a chapter on "Years of occupation" in the book "Polish Jews - History and Culture" written by Dr.hab.Doc. Marian Fuchs, I was baffled by the actor's name Wiera Gran.
In the same chapter, the newspaper â"œZagœZagiew "was given as one that was published by the assimilated in the ghetto.
One has committed two very serious errors that prove that the author has not subjected himself to in-depth research and neither got to the source information.
As a historian, he would be obliged to know well about the realities of life in the Warsaw ghetto.
According to the existing and later mentioned documents:
1 / The newspaper â"œZagœZagiew "was published by a group of Gestapo collaborators. In a tricky way and to fool their countrymen, it has the same name as the group of students among the assimilated youth (of course, before 1939) was adopted. The information I had from Adolf Berman of "Poalej Sjon" with which I had daily contacts on the occasion of my underground work.
2 / Vera Gran - was a cabaret actress in the ghetto. She also appeared on the so-called "Aryan" side in "Cafe Mocha" in the Marszalkowska street, and worked with Leon Skosowski, Adam Zurawin, Koenig, Wlodarski, Mark Rozenberg and Franciszaka Manowna for the Gestapo. Adam Zurawin Skosowski and Leon were sentenced to death in 1943 by the Polish and Jewish underground movement. Skosowskis sentence was carried out in Warsaw by the members of underground organizations. Zurawin escaped. After the shooting of Skosowski, Wiera Gran hid in Babice (Boernerowo) under the name - Jezierska.
In 1949 a Jewish actor Jonas Turkow (brother of actor Zygmunt Turkow, the husband of Ida Kaminska) -he was also in the Warsaw ghetto-, , wrote the book "In the struggle for life" in Buenos Aires Argentina, (in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute) and in 1969 a second book, "Jewish Warsaw was once ..." In these two books Wiera Gran is known as a Gestapo collaborator. In 1971, Wiera Gran sued Mr. Jonas Turkow in Israel for libel. The case was before several courts for years. It demanded more and more evidence of the guilt of Wiera Gran.
In 1976, Mr. Jonas Turkow turned to me (I knew him from the ghetto as a valued actor and decent person), asking for the necessary evidence to support his accusations against Gran from the Warsaw archives. His efforts by correspondence had led to no result.
I am an old, sick person, very limited in my movement, and therefore asked a journalist, JE Wilczur (Jacek Wilczur - Demjaniuk hunter), the well-known author of many books on Nazi occupation and a member of the Commission for the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in Poland.
Mr. Ed J.E. Wilczur was able to gather access to many unique and invaluable documents regarding Wiera Gran, who were clearly in support of her Gestapo relation. For this reason, he also wrote an article for "Prawo i Zycie" on 27/03/1977. No. 13/650.
I sent A copy of this newspaper, corresponding Xerox copies, certified by the appropriate institutions, as well as the book by Prof. Mark, published in 1959 by MON, to Turkow.
Turkow won the case (Tel Aviv 1982). Wiera Gran lost, despite the high profile lawyers. (She was living in Paris) She was denied entry to Israel.
Editor Jacek E. Wilczur's article "The criminal accuses" was based on the following documents:
0. Reporting of Counterintelligence of the AK (Home Army (Armia Krajowa)) - a group of documents II Dept. of High Command - Archive CC, file number 203 (III 129, p. 14 and 17).
0. Message of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) Intelligence Service No. 534 of 15 September 1943 report: "Waclaw" based on the report of "Jurek" - Reference Department of the exile government (in exile) Central Committee III of the Provincial Archives, Warsaw.
0. Book by Mark Bernard ("fighting and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, Warsaw 1959, edition II, Defense, p. 206-214. The author of this work, a history professor, was the director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.)
0. Archives of the Military Historical Institute in Warsaw, AK Kedyw Group 146 signatories. III (29) 7
0. Archive GKBZHwP group BD, 379, Volume I, K, 196
0. Documents of the delegation of the Government of Poland (London) on the Central Committee archives of the Country, the signature 202 (XV, Part 2, p. 344-345 Ref 203 (III), Vol 127, K 19) (Very important documents about the activities of the group and Vera Adam Zurawin Gran!)
0. Documents of the government in exile (Delegation of the country) - of the Central Committee Archives. Delegation of the Polish government in exile 202/XV Dept. of the Interior, Special Report main Inspect., Vol 2 II 202 {) t. 36, K 38 (s 344-345.)
0. Anti communist Committee, the signature 228 (6), K. 33rd_ _ and others.
Of all these details in connection with the court case against Turkow Doz Fuks did not know, what Fuks would have needed to know is what Prof. Mark, director of the Jewish Historical Institute has written in the above book, referring to source documents. These clearly show that Wiera Gran was in the service of the Gestapo. In addition, Professor Fuks, as the ghetto-time researcher should have known of the criminal activities of Wiera Gran.
Is bad enough that a wonderful volume book "Polish Jews - History and Culture", which is about the culture of these people, includes such terrible mistakes.
To me, from my youth, leftist, activist, and thus at heart close to the national minorities in Poland, it hurts to read the name Wiera Gran is in this book - a criminal, a saleswoman of her countrymen.
/ - / Irena Sendler (legible signature)
Awarded the Medal of the Righteous Among the Nations of the World in 1965. Head of the Department of Child Protection in the" Zegota ".
Clarissa Ryterband donated this collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on July 9, 2007:
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn519051
R. Gronski - Warsaw Getto survivor, Writer and directors board member of Jewish Theater in Warsaw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hLG-9OXxc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhRGhHpyzlA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpyWgq63-4o
From the book by Agata Tuszynska "Accused Wiera Gran"("Oskarzona Wiera Gran" - Wydawnictwo Literackie Krakow/Polska 2010)
Libeling translation by A. Tuszynska: "Help! Szpilman - "The pianist" was his father -, with Roman Polanski, formed a gang to kill me"
Lies in the book about Wiera Gran by Agata Tuszynska printed by polish publishers and spreading antisemitics lies against the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman
65 years after the war, a book by Agata Tuszynska "The Accused - Wiera Gran" is being published in Poland by "Wydawnictwo Literackie".
The outrageous promotional campaign by the literary publishing house in Krakow, "pulls" readers, with the statement: "a different side of the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman" to boost sales of the book.
This book attempts to exonorate a Polish-Jewish singer - Wiera Gran - who immediately after the war was suspected and charged of collaborating with the Gestapo in Poland and later again in Israel.
In order not to be exposed to the charge of anti -Semitism, the author- Agata Tuszynska turns to the "oppressed" and "pitiable" Jewish singer and herself tells us the story, how she discovered few yers ago her half-jewish roots. Wiera Gran, since 1970 plagued by psychical problems and since 2000 by Alzheimer disease, died in 2007.
In order to sell her book at all (who otherwise knows Vera Gran), Tuszynska turns to the singer and quotes her late statements - lies and slander against the target - Wladyslaw Szpilman, and produces an enormous image of a bad lie about the well known pianist and composer, and world-known hero of the holocaust movie "The Pianist". This sold well in Poland and France (antisemitism in France is still very well present).
Now it takes several months for a polish court order that can prohibit the sale of this book. Tuszynska makes also allegations that Wladyslaw Szpilman collaborated with communist secret services after World War II in Poland , but Wladyslaw Szpilman never knowingly took part in any operational talks with functionaries of the UB - communist intelligence. Such allegations are totally rejected by the IPN (Institute for National Rememberance).
According to the published files at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Szpilman and his family was interrogated and persecuted by the communist security services until 1989 (the end of the communism in Poland).
Wladyslaw Szpilman was never a member of the Communist or any other party.
False is the information, that Wiera Gran accused Szpilman in 1980 in her unpublished (self printed in Paris) book. In this book Szpilman was NOT described as a collaborator of the jewish police.
False is the information, that Wiera Gran repeated her accusations publicly in 1996. There was no such publication, and it would result immediately in a litigation and prosecussion, as Wladyslaw Szpilman was still alive.
Information, that Szpilman did not let Wiera Gran to work for Polish Radio is a lie. Szpilman was as a chief of Music Department of Polish Radio the one, who invited Wiera Gran, exactly the same as many other singers, to perform in the radio since 9.11.1945. This intensive cooperation ended with the emigration Gran`s to Israel in 1950. They worked later again together in 1965 in Warsaw.
Lie and libel is that Wladyslaw Szpilman made any accusations and denunciation about Wiera Gran and that this started the prosecution of Wiera Gran. Wladyslaw Szpilman was only a whitness in the court, and was this one, who could not say anything bad about Wiera Gran (you will find it repeated said even in the book by Tuszynska).
But at the time, as Wiera Gran, as stated by Marek Edelman and many others, was working for Germans on the "aryan" side of Warsaw, Wladyslaw Szpilman was himself still in the Getto, and could not even know about Wiera Gran`s actions, as she was acting 1942-43 outside of the getto. In accordings to the reports of Intelligence of National Army (Resistance) Wiera Gran got a gun (Walter 7,65) and special police ID to support her in her work of finding partisans and reach Jews on the "aryan" side of Warsaw.
Numerous documents of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) counterintelligence agents proves assignment of the hero of the book by Mrs. Tuszynska "Accused Wiera Gran" and particularly Wiera Gran`s working for the occupiers also in a so-called "Action Hotel Polski".
Under this devised plan, many Jews were lured from their hiding places in Warsaw and promised that by paying large amounts of money, they would be equipped with false South American passports, could travel to Vittel and later could emigrate to Palestine. But only a very few reached Palestine, (eg, Ruth Adler) Most were shipped from Vittel to the death camps and murdered.
Author (Tuszynska) downplays the importance of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) reports and tries to discredit the Mai 1945 statement by Marek Edelman (Kommendant of the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw, later member of underground resistance). He declared in an official statemant, just before the end of the war on 5.5.1945, that he knew of the collaboration of Wiera Gran with the GESTAPO. He knew also that a death sentence for the collaboration was imposed against her by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), but Gran was not found, and therefore it did not come to an enforcement.
Irena Sendler (Awarded the Medal of the Righteous Among the Nations of the World in 1965. Head of the Department of Child Protection in the" Zegota ", saved 2500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto) met Wiera Gran in the ghetto, later could collect more detailed informations about her activities and wrote in April 1983 to the Jewish Historical Institute as a protest to the publication of one book about Warsaw Jews:
"Wiera Gran - was a cabaret actress in the ghetto. She also appeared on the so-called "Aryan" side in a German "Cafe Mocha" in the Marszalkowska street, and worked with Leon Skosowski, Adam Zurawin, Koenig, Wlodarski, Mark Rozenberg and Franciszaka Manowna for the Gestapo. Adam Zurawin Skosowski and Leon were sentenced to death in 1943 by the Polish and Jewish underground movement. Skosowskis sentence was carried out in Warsaw by the members of underground organizations. Zurawin escaped. After the shooting of Skosowski, Wiera Gran hid in Babice (Boernerowo) under the name - Jezierska and survived. Documents of the delegation of the Government of Poland (London) on the Central Committee archives of the Country, the signature 202 (XV, Part 2, p. 344-345 Ref 203 (III), Vol 127, K 19) (Very important documents about the activities of the group and Vera Gran and Adam Zurawin!), Documents of the government in exile (Delegation of the country) - of the Central Committee Archives. Delegation of the Polish government in exile 202/XV Dept. of the Interior, Special Report main Inspect., Vol 2 II 202 {) t. 36, K 38 (s 344-345.) and many more source documents clearly shows that Wiera Gran was in the service of the Gestapo. To me, from my youth, leftist, activist, and thus at heart close to the national minorities in Poland, it hurts to read the name Wiera Gran - a criminal, a saleswoman of her countrymen."
/ - / Irena Sendler
This information and the anticommunistic underground National Army (AK) reports were, for clear reasons, not known to the courts in 1946-47, when deliberating over Wiera Gran's guilt. It is proven that her husband, Kazimierz Jezierski was employed 1945-55 by the Polish Ministry of State Security - he was an officer helping to execute Polish anticommunists and underground army members. His influence favored the termination of the proceedings against Wiera Gran. The court case in Poland was stopped because of "lack of evidence". Whitnesses was afraid, or did not talk and finally Gran was found not guilty! In Israel, she was again accused of collaboration with German Gestapo by Jonas Turkow, Adolf Berman and Pesach Burmsztajn and boycotted. She attempted to clear her name in courts there but the trial was finally suspended in 1982 and she lose the case.
Popularity of the film "The Pianist" by famous director Roman Polanski has led her also to other criminal utterances, lies and slander: against Roman Polanski and Andrzej Szpilman- son of Wladyslaw. The assertion in the book by Tuszynska, that Andrzej Szpilman, with Roman Polanski, formed a gang for the murder of Wiera Gran is awful and criminal.
Such claims of a sick woman are picked up by Mrs. Tuszynska and by the press for promotional or antisemitic purposes.
Wladyslaw Szpilman has never worked for the Jewish police in the ghetto. Also, he has never collaborated with the Nazis. There is no evidence in any of the archives, that would confirm such lies. To the contrary: Wladyslaw Szpilman was a victim of the Second World War and the extermination of the Jews, which is already publicly known for about 70 years.
One has to understand that Wladyslaw Szpilman published his memoir "The Pianist" already in 1946, as still 27 000 survivors of the ghetto in Warsaw were alive. He lived in Poland, composed well-known songs and classical music, performed for decades worldwide as a pianist, was well known in Poland and abroad and would have been immediately exposed as a liar. Particularly after the worldwide success of his book in 1998 and later after the film by Roman Polanski in 2002, we would have had a last chance to learn of any doubts.
Prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (Zegota, honorary citizen of Israel, former Polish Foreign Minister), Marian Turski (Association of Jews in Poland, Auschwitz Committee), Marcel Reich-Ranicki (literary critic and writer, former Prisoner of the Warsaw Ghetto), Jan Jagielski from the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, a.o. all call mendacious allegations and insinuations that Szpilman was involved in any crimes against humanity as baseless, shameful or scandalous.
As anounced judicial proceedings against Tuszynska have already been initiated in Warsaw, and are now litigated.
More significant here is the willingness with which these slanderous and antisemitic lies about Wladyslaw Szpilman are repeated and distributed in the news through the media, f.e. Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, TAZ, Newsweek, Guardian, Gazeta Wyborcza a.o. One can only be glad that now is not the year 1942
Szpilman family, have taken legal action against the dissemination of this book. It drags not only the memory of Wladyslaw Szpilman in the dirt, but it offends the surviving witnesses and their testimony about the greatest crime in human history.
/A. Szpilman/
"Wiera Gran`s hate" - Interview from the year 2002 with Marek Rudnicki (1927-2004), painter from Cafee "Sztuka"
Marek Rudnicki (1927-2004) - famous painter (1958-2002 worked for Le Monde in Paris) - he was making portraits in the cafee "Sztuka" and now in the interview made in Paris in 2002, describes Wladyslaw Szpilman, Henryk Szpilman and Wiera Gran.
Mr. Gronski cronist of the cabarets of the Warsaw ghetto tells his opinion.
(foto oryginal 1) Prawo i Zycie nr 13/1977 Jacek Wilczur (foto oryginal 2)
During the war, Wladyslaw Szpilman, was a pianist in the ghetto cafe "Sztuka" and worked there with many artists and also with Wiera Gran. Straight after the war, Wiera Gran was working as a singer for Music Department of the Polish Radio led by Wladyslaw Szpilman until her emigration to Israel in 1950. Tuszynska lies and for it there is many evidences in form of recordings and programms in the Polish Radio, made in cooperation of Wiera Gran with Wladyslaw Szpilman as a producer and a pianist. Very popular are two recordings of piece called "Jej pierwszy bal" recorded with Szpilman as the arranger and the pianist, in 1948 and again (cover version) in 1965 (!) during the first visit of Wiera Gran in Poland.
___________________
From the "Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary" by Mary Berg - Published in Jan. 1945 New York
August 1942
Every day dozens of carts with furniture and other objects are brought to the warehouses for looted Jewish possessions...
On one of this carts I noticed our great pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman. His appearance made me shudder. He was thin and exhausted, his suit hung like a bag, His sleeves were full of patches and his collar was torn. Slung over his arm was a bag with some bread. His eyes were hollowed out and he hardly seemed to breathe.
The carts go by in a long row in front of our windows. Two men accompany the driver to help him unload. When Szpilman`s turn came I could see him gasp each time he had to lift a piece of heavy furniture. He and his two assistants struggled for a long time with a grand piano which kept dropping back into the cart, ist strings twanging. Suddenly a German who had been watching ran out of the doorway and began to berate him. Szpilman tried to justifiy himself, and pointed to the piano`s heavy legs, but all he got for an answer was a slap in his face.
At one point the pianist turned toward us; apparently he had felt our gaze. He smiled bitterly, and lowered his head. He recognized his acquintances, former enthusiastic listeners at his concerts. Bewildered and ashamed, he turned away and resumed his work. Half an hour later the cart was empty. Wladyslaw Szpilman climbed back onto the seat and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand. He pulled at the reins and the horses ambled off.
Mary Berg "Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary" published in New York in January 1945
New book full of lies and libels says son of Wladyslaw Szpilman
The attack on Wladyslaw Szpilman in such a way tries to prove that Jews harmed themselves during the war, and that the role of the Nazis was merely auxiliary. In this way, the book creates a false image of Nazi crimes, which in turn affects the public perception of the most important matters of World War II, Andrzej Szpilman states.
Andrzej Szpilman, son of Wladyslaw Szpilman, made famous by Roman Polanskis movie The Pianist, says that allegations his father collaborated with Nazis during WW 2 occupied Poland are delusions made into fact by the media
Andrzej Szpilman is retaliating to allegations made in a new biography of war-time singer Wiera Gran written by Agata Tuszynska, in which the memory of Wladyslaw Szpilman is infringed upon in a scandalous way, says Andrzej Szpilman, who is determined to defend the reputation of his late father, a popular composer and pianist.
The biography of Wiera Gran contains quotations from the war-time singer, who performed in the Warsaw Ghetto and was herself accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime after the war.
The biography alleges that Wladyslaw Szpilman was a policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II and helped the Nazi occupiers round up Jews to the Umschlagplatz, from where they were transported to the Treblinka death camp.
These are just delusory comments of an ill woman which have been turned into facts by the media,âÄù Andrzej Szpilman told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
My father was never a policeman in the Ghetto. He was a prisoner in the Ghetto. The whole family on my father side was murdered, and he himself miraculously avoided death, the son of Wladyslaw Szpilman stated.
I find the advertising campaign of the publishing house [Wydawnictwo Literackie, which published the biography] outrageous, Andrzej Szpilman underlines.
The campaign entices readers with the promise that the book presents a history as yet unknown about the life Wladyslaw Szpilman, which simultaneously presents lies and is libellous,âÄù he adds.
Defamation
In order to make the book more presentable to the reader, by quoting it and copying its scandalous statements about Wladyslaw Szpilman, the publishing house is party to defamatory promotion. The attack on Wladyslaw Szpilman in such a way tries to prove that Jews harmed themselves during the war, and that the role of the Nazis was merely auxiliary. In this way, the book creates a false image of Nazi crimes, which in turn affects the public perception of the most important matters of World War II, Andrzej Szpilman states.
Wladyslaw Szpilman never worked for the jewish police in the Ghetto. He also never co-operated with the Gestapo. My father never would have received any help from the Zegota Polish underground organisation that helped save Jews during the war if any doubt would have been cast on his past history in the Ghetto.
Libel trial
The biography also makes allegations that Wladyslaw Szpilman collaborated with communist secret services after World War II in Poland , allegations his son also totally rejects.
After the war my father never knowingly took part in any operational talks with functionaries of the UB communist intelligence. According to the files at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Szpilman was interrogated and persecuted by the communist security services.
He published his memoirs, when around 27,000 Ghetto survivors still lived in Poland. Every one of them was a potential witness of my father behaviour during the Nazi occupation. Later, after the global success of The Pianist, if there would have been any grounds for misconduct, there would have been a storm of protests,âÄù the son of Wladyslaw Szpilman maintains.
In his statement, Andrzej Szpilman says that after searching though all the available archives in Warsaw, he found no proof that would confirm any of the allegations made by a singer Wiera Gran. Szpilman believes that maybe she wanted to throw the weight of her own guilt about her collaboration onto others.
In April 1983, Irena Sendler - the Pole who saved 2,500 Jewish children during WW II - gave a statemant to the Jewish Historical Institute for a book it was preparing on Polish Jews, in which she says that: Wiera Gran, a cabaret actress who also performed on the so-called Aryan side in the German Mocca cafe on Marszalkowska Street, worked for the Gestapo alongside Leon Skosowski".
"It hurt me a great deal that among the list of great people of the Jewish Nation, was Wiera Gran, a criminal, who sold out her own people, says Irena Sendler adding, that the know, that the singer lost a case to clear her name in a court case in Israel.
Biographer Agata Tuszynska misses out whole reams of information that pertain to this matter, as well as readily available materials from the Jewish Historical Institute. I have heard from many sources in Paris [where Wiera Gran eventually moved] that after the year 1975 she succumbed to Alzheimer. One cannot take statements made by people with the disease seriously. I will demand to be able to listen to the recordings of the interview between Tuszynska and Gran in court, and above all we shall see whether such tapes exist, because their credibility will allow to discern the real motives of the author, Szpilman concludes.
The Pianist
Wladyslaw Szpilman was an all-round musician, a pianist performing both solo and in chamber ensembles, as well as the composer of symphonic pieces and popular songs. He first studied the piano in Warsaw and Berlin, and worked at Polish Radio for four years until the outbreak of war.
Saved by Polish supporters, he miraculously avoided capture by the Nazis. In the final months of the war, he found shelter in the ruins of Warsaw and survived thanks to the help from his friends and a German Army officer, Wilm Hosenfelt.
After the war, he resumed his professional contacts with Polish Radio, serving as director of its Music Department for 18 years. He then founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet, which toured around the world for more than two decades. His compositional output includes around 500 songs and several symphonic works which have remained in the concert repertoire till today. (jb/pg/mk)
New Media, Polskie Radio S.A. 05.11.2010 12:00 (PAP / IAR)
"Der Spiegel" Nr. 44 on 30th.10.2010
The music producer and composer Andrzej Szpilman, 54, about the libels against his father, Wladyslaw Szpilman, that he was a Gestapo helper in the Warsaw Ghetto:
Spiegel: Mr. Szpilman, your father, world-famous through Roman Polanski's film "The Pianist",  is in a new book, published in Poland, accused of working for  the Gestapo in the Warsaw ghetto. Did your father collaborate?
Szpilman: That's impossible. He has published his diary right after the war under the title "Death of a City" and no one who, like himself, survived the Warsaw ghetto has criticized his descriptions. Nobody has protested against it. My father was, as it is described the film, a victim of the Nazis, not their assistant.
Spiegel: The allegations in the book are from a now deceased singer, who occasionally performed with your father in the ghetto.
Szpilman: That's right. One cannot ask her anymore. But they could have asked my mother, who lives in Warsaw. However, the author of the book never did. My father is a symbol and I do not want that my father's name is dragged in the dirt.
Spiegel: What are you going do do?
Szpilman: I turned it over to a prestigious law firm and will sue for the defamation in this book. But that takes time in Poland. Until then, more and more copies are sold. It is all about the publisher trying to make money using my father's name. The book was widely discussed, the abstruse claims quoted again and again. Once again anti-Semitic remarks appear in Internet forums. It's disgusting.
New book full of ‘lies and libel’ says son of Wladyslaw Szpilman
05.11.2010 12:00The attack on Wladyslaw Szpilman in such a way tries to prove that Jews harmed themselves during the war, and that the role of the Nazis was merely auxiliary. In this way, [the book] creates a false image of Nazi crimes, which in turn affects the public perception of the most important matters of World War II,” Andrzej Szpilman states.
Andrzej Szpilman, son of Wladyslaw Szpilman, made famous by Roman Polanski’s movie The Pianist, says that allegations his father collaborated with Nazis during WW 2 occupied Poland are delusions “made into fact by the media”.
Andrzej Szpilman is retaliating to allegations made in a new biography of war-time singer Wiera Gran written by Agata Tuszynska, in which the memory of Wladyslaw Szpilman is infringed upon in a “scandalous way,” says Andrzej Szpilman, who is determined to defend the reputation of his late father, a popular composer and pianist.
The biography of Wiera Gran contains quotations from the war-time singer, who performed in the Warsaw Ghetto and was herself accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime after the war.
The biography alleges that Wladyslaw Szpilman was a policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II and helped the Nazi occupiers round up Jews to the Umschlagplatz, from where they were transported to the Treblinka death camp.
“These are just delusory comments of an ill woman which have been turned into facts by the media,” Andrzej Szpilman told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
“My father was never a policeman in the Ghetto. He was a prisoner in the Ghetto. The whole family on my father’s side was murdered, and he himself miraculously avoided death,” the son of Wladyslaw Szpilman stated.
“I find the advertising campaign of the publishing house [Wydawnictwo Literackie, which published the biography] outrageous,” Andrzej Szpilman underlines.
“[The campaign] entices readers with the promise that the book presents a history as yet unknown about the life Wladyslaw Szpilman, which simultaneously presents lies and is libellous,” he adds.
Defamation
“In order to make the book more presentable to the reader, by quoting it and copying its scandalous statements about Wladyslaw Szpilman, [the publishing house] is party to defamatory promotion. The attack on Wladyslaw Szpilman in such a way tries to prove that Jews harmed themselves during the war, and that the role of the Nazis was merely auxiliary. In this way, [the book] creates a false image of Nazi crimes, which in turn affects the public perception of the most important matters of World War II,” Andrzej Szpilman states.
“Wladyslaw Szpilman never worked for the police in the Ghetto. He also never co-operated with the Gestapo. My father never would have received any help from the Zegota Polish underground organisation that helped save Jews during the war if any doubt would have been cast on his past history in the Ghetto.
Libel trial
The biography also makes allegations that Wladyslaw Szpilman collaborated with communist secret services after World War II in Poland – allegations his son also totally rejects.
“After the war my father never knowingly took part in any ‘operational talks’ with functionaries of the UB communist intelligence. According to the files at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Szpilman was interrogated and persecuted by the communist security services. He published his memoirs, when around 27,000 Ghetto survivors still lived in Poland. Every one of them was a potential witness of my father’s behaviour during the Nazi occupation. Later, after the global success of The Pianist, if there would have been any grounds [for misconduct], there would have been a storm of protests,” the son of Wladyslaw Szpilman maintains.
In his statement, Andrzej Szpilman says that after searching though all the available archives in Warsaw, he found no proof that would confirm the allegations made by singer Wiera Gran. Szpilman believes that maybe she wanted to throw the weight of her own guilt about her collaboration onto others.
Andrzej Szpilman refers to a statement made in April 1983 by Irena Sendler - the Pole who saved 2,500 Jewish children during WW II - to the Jewish Historical Institute for a book it was preparing on Polish Jews, in which she says that: “Wiera Gran, a cabaret actress who also performed on the so-called Aryan side in the German ‘Mocca’ café on Marszalkowska Street, worked for the Gestapo alongside Leon Skosowski. […] It hurt me a great deal that among the list of great people of the Jewish Nation, Wiera Gran was among them – a criminal, who sold out her own people,” adding that the singer lost a case to clear her name in a court case in Israel.
“[Biographer] Agata Tuszynska misses out whole reams of information that pertain to this matter, as well as readily available materials from the Jewish Historical Institute. I have heard from many sources in Paris [where Wiera Gran eventually moved] that after the year 2000 she succumbed to Alzheimer’s. One cannot take statements made by people [with the disease] seriously. I will demand to be able to listen to the recordings of the interview between Tuszynska and Gran in court, and above all we shall see whether such tapes exist, because their credibility will allow to discern the real motives of the author,” Szpilman concludes.
The Pianist
Wladyslaw Szpilman was an all-round musician – a pianist performing both solo and in chamber ensembles, as well as the composer of symphonic pieces and popular songs. He first studied the piano in Warsaw and Berlin, and worked at Polish Radio for four years until the outbreak of war.
He miraculously avoided capture by the Nazis. In the final months of the war, he found shelter in the ruins of Warsaw and survived thanks to the help from his friends and a German Army officer, Wilm Hosenfelt.
After the war, he resumed his professional contacts with Polish Radio, serving as director of its Music Department for 18 years. He then founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet, which toured around the world for more than two decades. His compositional output includes around 500 songs and several symphonic works which have remained in the concert repertoire till today. (jb/pg/mk) Copyright © Nowe Media, Polskie Radio S.A. All Rights Reserved
Important links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9260332/Family-of-The-Pianist-composer-take-author-to-court-of-Gestapo-allegations.html
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/68589/was-the-pianist-a-nazi-collaborator
http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/59660,Poland-celebrates-The-Pianists-100th-birthday-
www.agatatuszynska.info
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn519051
Tuszynska describes how Vera Gran was expelled from Israel, after she was accused there of collaboration with the Germans in 1943 by the witnesses.
But the process that Gran has allegedly started in Israel against the accuser has been apparently lost by Gran in 1983 and is not documented in any way.
Insinuation that Israeli Jews "have learned nothing from the Holocaust", especially in Europe, is in and anti-Semitism as a masked and disguised is produced.
The biggest sensation seems to raise false and presented without basis claim that for all the failures of the Vera Gran shall be responsible well-known throughout the world pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman. The "enviable" pianist with an account of nearly 500 songs, a number of symphonic works and more than a thousand concerts in the largest concerthalls of the world, published his memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto, "Death of a City"-later known as "The Pianist" under his own name right after the war (Jan.1946). Nobody in the last 65 years has raised objections to the content of the book or Wladyslaw Szpilman's attitude during the war. Although there are many envious and anti-Semites who would have liked to do!
Tuszynska however, makes a slanderous attack on Szpilman 10 years after his death. And after the death of almost all witnesses (Mark Edelman one of the Chiefs of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Jerzy Lewinski-historian and boss of the Jewish Police in Warsaw Ghetto - died in 2006, and Vera Gran itself).
Tuszynska attempted slander, insults and put them the Vera Gran in the mouth, with the knowledge (Even Gran claimed already '70s-end: "I live with Alzheimer's under one roof"), that she is ill and irresponsible since a long time.
Tuszynska has never presented the audio recordings of her own conversations with Vera Gran in court or in public.
Criminal is to insult Wladyslaw Szpilman as "a brilliant pianist, a brilliant Gestapoman".
Tuszynska ignores a series of documents in the Jewish Historical Institute (ZIH) in Warsaw which was inappropriate for her story.
She conceals e.g. the document at ZIH which was made public at the time of presentation of the book - this is a testimony of Irena Sendler, an activist of the Home Army (underground Home Army) and Zegota (Organization to support the Jews during the war), a great Polish patriot, who saved heroicaly 2,500 Jewish children from the ghetto from certain death.
Irena Sendler described in 1983 in a statement to the Jewish Historical Institute on the basis of knowledge and archival sources:
Irena Sendler, writes that she knows and because of many repeats of the Polish and Jewish underground - the various fractions: - Wiera Gran was after the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, involved in the spying of the remaining Jews who were hiding in Warsaw in sc Action "Hotel Polski" and delivering them to the Germans. (The original document can be found www.wieragran.com and ZIH in Warsaw) “ Vera Gran - was in the ghetto cabaret actress. She also appeared (1943) on the so-called "Aryan" side in the (German red.) "Café Mocha" on Marszałkowska street, and worked with Leon Skosowski, Adam Zurawin, Koenig, Wlodarski, Mark Rozenberg and Franciszaka Manowna for the Gestapo. Adam Zurawin and Leon Skosowski were in 1943 by the Polish and Jewish underground movement sentenced to death. Skosowskis sentence was carried out in Warsaw by the members of underground organizations. Zurawin escaped. After the shoot of Skosowski , Wiera Gran rest in hiding in Babice (Boernerowo) under the name - Jezierska.”
Documents of the hardest crimes by Vera Gran were collected for months not only by the Home Army counterintelligence.
Tuszynska regarded them as unreliable.
The reader should get the impression, conform to such of the communist authorities in Poland in 1946, that the Polish anticomunists and resistance fighters murdered by communistic stalinists after the war, was a collection of criminals. It is noted here that some groups like to undermine the authority, the credibility and importance of the actions of the Polish anti-communists and anti-German underground tries.
Home Army led paramilitary actions, investigations, collection of documentation about the crimes and traitors, the conduct of investigations, prosecution, courts and enforcement of the death penalty for traitors of the Polish nation. For political reasons, Home Army members were politically persecuted after the war. Communists persecuted and killed them in Stalin's prisons. Most members of the Home Army have long concealed their wartime past. The others were killed or at least severely persecuted.
One of the members of the group who murdered Polish patriots was the "guardian angel" of Gran Vera - her husband Kazimierz Jezierski.
He served as an officer of the Polish Stalinist secret police in the political prison "Rakowiecka" in Warsaw, and was involved in killing such Polish officers: Rotmistrz Pilecki , plk. Sek and others - no wonder that Gran was released after a few weeks in prison in Warsaw and was relieved of the Stalinist court. At those time, for obvious reasons, the documents of the AK was unknown. To a conviction for the criminal acts of Vera Gran after the Warsaw ghetto liquidation it was not enough to sentence her because of the personal statement by Marek Edelman from May 1945:
Marek Edelman, head of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, spatter in the People's Army (AL) said on 5.5.1945 in a declaration, before the end of the war, that he knew about the collaboration with the Gestapo by Wiera Gran. He also knows that Gran was already sentenced to death by the Home Army. However Gran was not found, and therefore it had not come to enforcement.
Tuszynska has succeeded in the preparation of publication in Germany at Suhrkamp Verlag Island, who has published a few years ago a book by Martin Walser - The Death of a Critic, with the famous introduction of the antisemitic term "Auschwitzkäule", who alleged that the Germans were reminded by the Jews of their crimes.
Now after the publication Tuszynskas book is litigated in Germany
The author has succeeded in the preparation of the book in the U.S. with a German publishing house: in the Kopf Publishing / Random House belonging to Bertelsmann Publishing House.
It should be recalled here that Random House, Inc. is the knob Publishers belongs to the group Bertelsmann, the famous German publishing group. Here in English (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2308415.stm) "Bertelsmann admits to have made huge profits from the forced labor of the Jewish slaves"
As in German (http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=5722) eg Curling
"The report of the IHC to Saul Friedländer was presented to the public in autumn 2002. It is published by C. Bertelsmann and paints a different picture of the company's history: Of their own and under the primacy of corporate - and that means above all: economic - interests shifted C. Bertelsmann antisemitic and warmongering literature - partly open throughout - persecution and violence propagated "" Many of the Bertelsmann books published are committed to Nazi ideology and Nazi policies and justify "openly persecution and violence.: (converges with the Nazi Jewish extermination," Radical anti-Semitism of the explicitly racist argumentative literature " ) policy. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2308415.stm
Litigation of Tuszynska because of the book publishing in Poland continues.
more informations about Agata Tuszynska: http://www.agatatuszynska.info
